Enhancing Community Readiness for Dambreak Flooding with FEMA
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s (DCR) Dam Safety and Floodplain Management Division was recently awarded a FEMA grant for Collaborative Technical Assistance (CTA). It will facilitate aiding communities at risk of dam-related flooding to better understand their risk landscape and the potential consequences of dam-related emergencies. The CTA will include planning for emergencies related to operational discharges or dam-related infrastructure failure.
FEMA describes the process as follows: “Participants will engage in a facilitated planning process with community stakeholders to build relationships, develop plans, and collaborate with whole community partners to achieve the goal of increased preparedness to dam-related hazards.” To facilitate the process FEMA offers six sessions including:
- CTA-0 Summary Sheet Overview
- CTA-1 Community Needs Scoping and Introduction
- CTA-2 Dam Risk Consequences/ Lessons Learned
- CTA-3 Stakeholder Engagement and Communication
- CTA-4 Plan Development
- CTA-5 Emergency Action Plan and Emergency Operations Plan Refinement and Approval
- CTA-6 Plan Implementation and Program Evaluation
This paper will share key messages from FEMA and lessons learned from working with localities in Virginia.
Author Bio
Mark is the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Lead Dam Safety Engineer. Earlier in his career, Killgore spent three years at Puget Sound Energy as a hydro manager, where he oversaw such functions as major capital project development related to dam safety, water management, energy production studies, and strategic planning. He spent nearly 30 years as a consulting engineer with focus on dam safety and hydro licensing and also worked for the Corps of Engineers. He also served as adjunct faculty at Seattle University where he taught water resources engineering and fluid mechanic and a researcher at U. T. Austin.
Mr. Killgore received Bachelors of Civil Engineering degree and a Master of Science in Civil Engineering degree specializing in water resources and environmental engineering from the University of Washington (1984). He holds the Diplomate, Water Resources Engineer (D. WRE) specialty certification from the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers.
